Solar Storms and the Origins of Life: New Discoveries and Challenges

A study by NASA scientists suggests that solar storms may have played a vital role in the origin of life on Earth. The study explains how highly energized solar particles, colliding with gases in Earth's early atmosphere, can form amino acids and carboxylic acids, the basic building blocks of proteins and organic life. The theory proposes that solar storms could have created the right conditions for inorganic compounds to come together and form some of the most basic organic compounds, which eventually led to the origin and sustenance of life on Earth.